In 2017, I decided to learn how to cook. My parents don’t cook much, so to teach myself, I signed up for one of those at-home meal-prep kits. Within weeks, I was hooked: when you work in an industry riddled by economic uncertainty and an unhealthy dependency on social media algorithms, there’s something particularly soothing about coming home at the end of the day and chopping onions.

Well it looks like I finally have something to fill the void that Cook, Serve, Delicious left after I finished everything there was to do in the mobile version. Not a big fan of the art style in this one, but if the gameplay’s good, that will all fade to the background, anyway.

I like CSD2 a lot, but as you pointed out, it’s not on mobile (yet). I also don’t really care for the changes they made to the progression. The core gameplay is still, good, though, and the warming stations and side dishes add some fun wrinkles.

So I downloaded Cooking Craze, and it’s pretty good. It does indeed scratch that rapid-paced multi-tasking itch that Cook, Serve, Delicious! did. It unfortunately reeks of free to play “fun pain” mind games. Most missions are fun and doable, then one will pop up which will be absolutely impossible without using consumable boosts and/or upgrading your kitchen through excessive grinding or paying real money. While I like the mechanics of the game, I will never give them a cent for that BS.